(your kiss) got me hoping you'll save me right now
by Melissa Alexander
Summary: Bethyl AU - Canon Complaint/Divergence where Beth and Daryl have escaped the funeral home together and are attempting to navigate these new feelings they are hopeless to deny. - For Bethyl Smut Week 2019: Day 1, Prompt: barn - *working title from Beyonce's slowed down remix of Crazy In Love (2014)*


**For Bethyl Smut Week 2019**

**Day 1, prompt: barn**

_*working title from Beyonce's slowed down remix of Crazy In Love (2014)_

* * *

Sweltering. That was the only word to describe the way Beth felt when she finally dragged herself from her comatose state and her eyelids fluttered open. The barn was bathed in darkness, her tank top twisted up around her, bunching up her back and under her arms, so that Daryl's hand was splayed protectively across the naked skin of her belly.

Beth's muscles clenched instinctively under his palm as she released a shuddering breath, a new heat stirring deep within her. He was a furnace, the heat seeping off his sleeping form in droves as warm puffs of his breath stirred the hair by her ear, tickling her neck.

Had they slept the entire day away? They'd only meant to take a few hours' respite from the unforgiving Georgia sun. Beth sighed. The simple act of breathing felt like a major feat. Her head felt heavy, hazy — surreal, almost, as she watched the humid Georgia breeze stir the tops of the trees from the open door of the hay loft.

Daryl mumbled something incoherent in his sleep, his thumb twitching just so against her fevered skin and sending goosebumps skittering in its wake. Beth's breath hitched as she struggled to contain the moan that was clawing its way up her throat. _Up and up and up_, it pushed past her lips in a breathy rush of air _and_ — Daryl's eyes flew open.

He stared at her with pupils black and dangerous as a caged animal, his gaze penetrating through the darkness as if he could see into the very depths of her soul. Would he run if he saw what hid there? Close himself off from her and erect those walls again? He'd been so gentle and caring since she'd injured her ankle — the Daryl she'd come to know him to be. The Daryl he tried so hard to hide from everyone else.

_No._ Beth would not allow him to withdraw again. Not from her. Not _ever_ from her.

She swallowed convulsively, forcing herself to move. She reached a hand to smooth the hair back from in front of his eyes, her palm sweeping gently against the grainy stubble of his jawline. Daryl's eyes fluttered closed, exhaling audibly as his body trembled slightly at her touch before succumbing and leaning into it.

Relief washed over her, as languid and heady as the desire that still pulsed like liquid heat in her veins. When they'd first came together in a rush of lust and limbs and a culmination of emotions that could not be contained, it had been born out of relief and fear. Relief of escaping the funeral home alive, _together_ — of still having each other. And fear that that could all change in the blink of an eye.

They hadn't touched since. Hadn't spoken of it either, but it was there, clinging to them like the stifling Georgia heat, heavy and suffocating and refusing to be forgotten… drifting somewhere in between right and wrong and something else that neither of them dared to name.

Beth worried her bottom lip between her teeth, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The straw scratched mercilessly at the exposed skin of her back with every breath she drew, but she made no move to rectify it. Not if it meant removing his hand from her body. Instead, she wet her lips, wishing to soothe the dry ache forming like a knot in her throat.

Daryl's eyes tracked her movements, his pupils blown wide, watching as she flicked the tip of her tongue against her lips. Beth was certainly not some practiced seductress, but in that moment, it wasn't hard to distinguish the effect that had on him — even if she wasn't able to _feel_ the evidence of it suddenly pressed against her thigh.

His thumb twitched again, tracing the edge of her navel. This time, Beth allowed herself to moan aloud, her stomach muscles contracting against the fluttering deep within her belly.

"Daryl?" Beth's quiet plea seemed to echo through the empty barn. It bounced off of every surface, hoarse and shaky and unfamiliar to her own ears. Daryl let out something between a whimper and a growl in response.

He was going to make her ask for it. Not because it was a power play — no, Beth knew very well she held all the cards. But this was Daryl and he _needed_ to _hear_ it was okay. Okay to want. To touch. To let the walls crumble and let go...

"It's okay, Daryl. I want you to —"

His mouth was urgent as it slid over hers, effectively silencing her. The gentleness he reserved for tending her injuries was gone, and Beth came apart in his hands, rending like a flimsy piece of cloth. She was breathless when he broke the kiss, the fluttering in her tummy churning into a powerful gnawing ache. With clumsy fingers she reached for the button-fly of his pants, fumbling with the zipper and pushing her hand inside, a sense of desperation fueling her sudden burst of courage.

Daryl didn't stop her. His ragged breath rasped harshly in her ear, encouraging Beth as her fingers found and curled around his cock — swollen and weeping from want of her. She stroked her hand up the silken length of him, hard and pulsing in her fevered touch.

Daryl groaned, the husky sound sending the heat in her belly shooting straight between her thighs, as his hips bucked and he pushed himself deeper into her grasp. His hand on her stomach slid lower, her muscles caving in response, guiding his hand as it slipped under the waistband of her jeans and dipped into her panties to cup her cunt.

Beth's hips craned towards his touch, a feral growl humming in her throat as Daryl brushed his hand against the tuft of hair guarding the place where she burned for him. Softly, he stroked her, his fingers drifting just so, a sweet yet torturous denial of the friction her body demanded of him. Yet he did not relent.

Instead, he pushed his fingers between her lips to press against the nub where all her nerve endings seemed to be centered. Beth thrashed her head against the hay serving as their current bed, her thighs trembling around his hand from the overwhelming sensations, as Daryl took her mouth in another kiss, swallowing her cries and taking them within himself.

"Daryl, please," Beth whimpered against his mouth. The dull ache grew to a painful emptiness, a hollowed-out hole gnawing at her insides, demanding to be filled.

Daryl tore his lips from hers, an animalistic growl rumbling low in his chest. There was nothing gentle or romantic about the way he jerked open her jeans and shoved them down her legs (just one leg, actually). So frenzied were his movements that he nearly tore her panties at the seams in a desperate bid to get them down over her thighs fast enough.

Beth didn't care. The same desperation coursed through her as she fumbled to release him from the confines of his pants. A desperation to be with him again, no matter the cost; the sudden creeping of dread and the feeling that they were on borrowed time was a crushing weight Beth couldn't begin to explain.

She didn't protest at the bite of the straw beneath them when he none-too-gently rolled her to her side, nor when his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thigh as he jerked it up over his hip, and nudged his cock eagerly against her backside.

Beth reached down between her legs, guiding Daryl inside of her as he flexed his hips and thrust deep, a cry of victory springing forth from his lips. She cried out her own triumph, ripples of pleasure surging through her tiny frame as Daryl rocked himself in and out of her body.

It was sin and salvation, raw and sweet and something _real_.

His grip still tight on her thigh, Daryl snaked his other arm around her, so that his free hand could push up underneath her tank top to cup her breast. His calloused palms were rough against her soft skin, but Beth rejoiced in the feeling of it all — gritty and surreal, yet the realest thing she'd ever known: Daryl's hands mapping her flesh, committing it to memory.

"Beth." His voice was a gravelly rasp against the delicate curve of her jaw as his thrusts grew more frenzied, and her name was a litany whispered into her salty skin.

She matched his fervor, her body taut with the coiling heat burgeoning deep within — tensing like the string of the bow Daryl wielded with such expertise and deadly accuracy. Beth perched at the edge of a precipice, waiting to tumble headfirst into the salvation this sin was wrought with.

"So good," was all she could croak out — again, her own voice so unfamiliar as it rang in her ears.

But _good_ didn't even come close to the high Beth was riding. _No._ Not riding — _flying._ She was flying on Daryl's wings, soaring high above the tree tops… _Up and up and up,_ they carried her like a crescendo, then flung her into the night sky.

And Daryl was there to catch her. His strong arms enveloped her, and he rolled onto his back and pulled her astride him. His calloused palms skimmed up her sides and down the length of her arms until he found her hands, and entwined their fingers.

"Use me," he encouraged Beth, squeezing her hands to show he meant for leverage. He flexed his hips upwards and drove deeper into her soft, yielding body.

Beth shuddered in response and sunk down completely until their hips were flush and Daryl was nestled deep inside of her. _So, so deep_ where pleasure bordered on pain but, _oh,_ it hurt so good. Then canting her hips, she slid up his hard length, reveling in her newfound power and the way Daryl — _so strong, so sure_ — became putty in her hands.

And then she was falling — from grace, _surely,_ but Beth was long past caring. Her muscles clenched around him, greedily sucking Daryl deeper still, even as she burst into a million fiery pieces, like so many stars twinkling above them outside of the barn in the inky night sky.

She hadn't even realized that she'd been crying out his name until a gentle hand clamped down over her mouth. Two more quick thrusts upwards and Daryl's release immediately followed. His face screwed up in the thoroughs of passion, and a series of grunts and groans much quieter than her own preceding it, as he quickly reached down between their bodies and withdrew from her to spill his seed.

Beth froze. This was the part where he'd withdraw from her emotionally, too, like he had the first time. It was wrong; society said so. _But_… society was gone.

She held her breath, unable to move, steeling herself for his rejection. But it never came. Instead, Daryl tugged her down beside him, cradling her head in the crook of his arm, and held her while their heart rates slowed and their breathing returned to normal.

Right, wrong, what did it matter, anyway? It was just the two of them here, in this moment. They'd survived — _today,_ at least.

The last pretty girl, and the last decent man.


End file.
